Salt Additions - Melbournes Cardinia Water - Ipa

[husky]

Hi Guys,

Looks like I may get a chance to brew tomorrow and was hoping to use brewing salts for the first time. Im Melbournes SE on Cardinia reservour water. From my reading it seems people in a similar area are using calcium sulphate and calcium chloride.
One thread I went through mentioned that 10g total calciuml salts should be used. More chloride for malty brews and more sulphate for hoppy brews.
If I have understood this correctly, then I would imagine 8g calcium sulphate and 2g calcium chloride would be the way to go for an IPA?

Any info from brewers on the same water supply would be appreciated.

cheers

 

[manticle]

Your additions depend on a couple of things.

First, your current water supply which you know is Cardinia.

Most recent report that I know of is 2010 and is here: http://www.sewl.com.au/SiteCollectionDocum...er_Analysis.pdf
Second your grain and liquor amounts. Not sure what the recipe is or the volume you are brewing.

Third, the type of grain.

Salts are added to get the pH into the right region (5.2-5.4) and for flavour. Calcium is for pH, the chloride/sulphate for flavour so that depends on what ratio you want (and what is already in the water) As you surmise, sulphate will push bitterness and hops - too much is no good though.

Download the meteric version of this: http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/ Type in the relevant values from the linked report. Type in the grain types and amounts and play around until you hit the right pH, then tweak until you get the profile you want.

From there it's a bit trial and error - brew and see for yourself, tweak next time.

Apologies that I don't use cardinia water (mine is a mix if silvan and winneke so I have to average out values for both of those) but hopefully that helps. Definitely need amounts (liquor and grain) and grain types if anyone is going to give you their profile though.

 

[husky]

Thanks mate. Have plugged in the relevant values from the report. Recipe has.
44L mash(no sparge)
6kg pils
0.75kg crystal
0.75kg munich

Spreadsheet tells me that my mash ph at room temp will be 5.68 and that 5.4 to 5.6 is optimum.
If I add 8g sulphate and 2g chloride it comes down to 5.61. Is the idea to add salts until you are in the optimum ph range?
cheers

 

[husky]

Spreadsheet attached with info added. Does it look ok?

View attachment Copy_of_EZ_water_calculator_3.0.1_metric.xls

 

[manticle]

My take:

Focus on getting pH within cooey.

Don't forget you can split between mash and sparge but it is the mash additions (obviously) that will affect the mash pH. Sparge additions will affect chloride:sulphate ratio (and other levels like magnesium and sodium but my reading and limited experience with those suggests adding or even worrying about their amounts is not worth it. They are better out than in too large amounts for flavour etc and their effect on pH is limited. The other thing you can do if you really fell the pH needs to come down but want to avoid adding too much salt is a small acid addition. The effects are more dramatic than salts. Citric, lactic or phosphoric are all doable.

Once mash pH is roughly where you want it, tweak the profile - you should get a description that suggests you are pushing bitterness or pushing malt with a value as to where that occurs.

So to summarise: pH first. Flavour additions second and these can be done in sparge water (or in the case of non sparging style biab, added after mashing)..

To my mind, I reckon you could drop the sulphate a bit - looks like it will push too much. Up the chloride to get the pH right, then add in a little extra of both to the boil.

6g gypsum, 4 g calCl2 gives a mash pH of 5.61 (outside the range but close enough for my liking).

You want a hoppy beer but a balancing malt backbone too.

As I said though - it is a bit trial and error and personal taste as long as you are in the realm and have an idea what each salt does.

5.2-5.4 range is mash temp by the way so room temp measurement as suggested by the ez calc is different.

 

[felten]

I like this as a simple starters guide http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-w...-primer-198460/

 

[troopa]

Hey Manticle thanks a heap for that PDF as i had a feeling that since moving down to Bewick from the hunter valley before Xmas ive been noticing a large difference in my brews
Managed to have a decent look around that site you linked and found the 2011 water quality report.. it doesnt have the complete chemical break down of heh water supplies but has a more detailed PH for suburbs instead of regions on Page 31

 

[Wolfy]

Melbourne's water is so low in salts that - as an easy starting point - one can assume it is the same as RO/Distilled water since that can make calculations easier.
The last couple of American Pale Ale I made had 10g of Calcium Sulphate and 4g of Calcium Chloride - so you're in the right ball park according to what I do.

 

[husky]

brew day has been put off until tomorrow. As you have suggested manticle, I will try more balanced salt additions of 6g and 4g. I assume these are added when bring the mash up to temp?
What is the benefit of then adding additional salts to the boil? Bearing in mind I do a modified BIAB and therefore all mash water is in the boil and no sparge is done.
cheers,

 

[iralosavic]

Well you could lose some minerals by grain absorbsion, but with full volume BIAB I don't think spitting additions is necessary... The extra salts will simply bring the ph even lower, which is a good thing in a pale mash. Also even a few gms of salts will create quite an eruption in a rolling boil (morso than hips) so you need decent headroom for it.